The Violin That Kept Its Breath
Si-woo lifted the violin.
He settled it on his left shoulder and brought his chin down to the chin rest.
The motion was so natural it seemed instinctive.
The gesture of someone who had repeated it thousands of times.
"Appraiser Kim Si-woo, do you know how to play the violin?"
Yang Dong-seok, the general manager, asked in surprise, but Si-woo did not answer.
No, more precisely, he could not answer.
Because Yosef Hassid's memories were already flowing into his fingertips.
The angle of his right hand on the bow.
The pressure of his left index finger settling onto the string.
Even the delicate balance of force against the chin rest.
Everything fell into perfect alignment.
This was not something he had learned.
It was something he remembered.
A piece surfaced in his mind.
Yosef Achron's Hebrew Melody.
1940.
A piece recorded by sixteen-year-old Hassid with pianist Gerald Moore.
One of only eight pieces Yosef Hassid ever left behind in his life.
Just a year after recording it, Hassid was shattered by schizophrenia.
His memories unraveled, and the hallucinations came.
He collapsed onstage before he could finish performing.
At seventeen, he was forced to put down the violin forever.
A piece carrying his final breath.
Si-woo's fingers were already finding the opening position of Hebrew Melody.
No one had taught him, but it felt inevitable.
Besides, the violin called Le Chant du Silence was already too familiar.
His eyes slowly closed as he sank into the music.
Director Choi Min-ho held his breath and moved quietly to frame the shot.
Morning sunlight poured through the window and settled over the amber varnish of the violin.
By then, no one dared speak.
The invisible aura radiating from Si-woo seemed to press down on the air in the living room.
It was like the instant just before a performer stepped onto the stage.
The moment when the audience, without meaning to, stopped breathing.
The bow touched the strings.
The first note rang out.
The low, weighty resonance of the G string spread across the living room floor.
The wooden boards answered in sympathy.
Hebrew Melody.
The lament of those who had lost their homeland, said to have become music.
As the opening phrase sounded, the violin that had slept for eighty years began to wake from silence.
Si-woo's left hand slid across the fingerboard.
Vibrato shimmered into the note.
That trembling was not something you could learn from a manual.
It was Yosef Hassid's own vibrato.
The bow slowed.
The weight resting on the string changed.
The sound began to breathe, and the melody rose.
With every note, the density of the sound deepened.
It was as if the voices trapped inside the instrument for eighty years were all pouring out at once.
Emily covered her mouth.
Si-woo's bow drove forward, rushing toward the peak.
Among the flurry of notes, dazzling technique burst open in flashes.
The cry of a young man who had once wept for the chance to hold a violin again.
The ache of fingers that had reached desperately into empty air from a hospital bed.
All of it came pouring out through the tip of the bow.
The living room became a vast concert hall.
Yang Dong-seok had forgotten even how to breathe.
Director Choi Min-ho, too, could not tear his eyes from the monitor and bit his lip to keep from gasping aloud.
The bow came to a slow stop on the string.
The violin's sound lingered in the air like reluctant afterglow.
And then the performance ended.
What remained, at last, was silence.
The instrument's resonance faded away.
Tears rolled down the cheeks of the moved Christine.
Emily had both hands over her face.
Her shoulders trembled faintly.
No one could clap.
This was not merely a performance.
Yosef Hassid had returned after eighty years.
None of them had dreamed Si-woo could ever play like this.
As if he had just run a hundred meters at full speed, Si-woo exhaled roughly as the last echo died.
* * *
During the drive, General Manager Yang Dong-seok and Director Choi Min-ho said nothing.
The afterglow of the performance still filled the car.
And so the group arrived in London in silence.
At Crosier Fine Art's London branch.
Oliver Fitzgerald was waiting in the office on Bond Street in Mayfair.
He had studied musicology at Oxford and later worked in string instruments for Sotheby & Krusty.
Now he oversaw instrument authentication at Crosier's London branch.
Si-woo had arranged the introduction in advance through James Miller.
"Appraiser Kim Si-woo, it's a pleasure to meet you. James Miller has already briefed me."
Oliver extended a hand.
He was in his mid-fifties, with a neat, polished air.
As they shook hands, Si-woo could feel the calluses of a man who had handled instruments for decades.
"I understand this is a violin made by Vuillaume and used by Kreisler and Hassid. If that's true, it'll become a huge topic in the field."
"Would you like to examine it yourself?"
"Gladly."
Si-woo opened the case.
Oliver's eyes changed at once, becoming the eyes of a professional appraiser.
He lifted the violin and slowly turned it under the light, examining the grain of the top plate, the tone of the varnish, and the curve of the f-holes.
"You're exactly right, Appraiser Kim Si-woo. The varnish on the top plate is in excellent condition. This amber tone does seem to be characteristic of Vuillaume's peak period. To have preserved such vivid color is remarkable."
Oliver's fingers moved to the back plate.
"It's a one-piece back. Not two joined boards, but carved from a single slab of maple. At this level, I can confidently call it top-tier."
His fingertips traced the edge of the violin.
"Even the purfling along the border is flawless. For an instrument over 160 years old, the joints are astonishingly clean."
Then Oliver's gaze stopped.
The left f-hole.
He took out a penlight and shone it into the f-hole.
The beam swept across the area beside the bass bar where the label had once been attached.
Oliver's hand froze.
"So this is the initial you mentioned. It's hard to make out, but I can just barely identify what was carved there."
His voice dropped.
Oliver kept his composure.
But even he could not hide the slight tremor in the fingertips holding the penlight.
Inside the f-hole.
Two letters scratched into the dark wood.
J.H.
They had not been cut with a sharp tool.
They were gouged by fingernails.
Hearing the story was one thing; seeing the physical trace in front of him was something else entirely.
As Oliver thought of Yosef Hassid's story, chills rose along his skin.
"Hoo. Your appraisal is right, Appraiser Kim Si-woo."
He drew a breath and moved the penlight toward the pegbox.
"Then let me also check the Polish inscription inside the pegbox."
He tilted the violin carefully.
Light spilled across the bottom inside the pegbox.
"Choć ostatni raz."
Oliver's lips moved soundlessly.
He could read Polish.
"If only one last time..."
For a moment, silence fell.
Oliver gently placed the violin back into the case.
"Good heavens..."
As if unable to believe it, Oliver shook his head at the empty air before straightening himself.
"From what I can see, my appraisal matches yours, Appraiser Kim Si-woo. All the physical characteristics of Vuillaume's peak period are present, and the evidentiary traces of the inscription remain on the instrument itself."
He picked up the documents on the desk.
"I've already contacted J.&A. Beare. They're prepared to begin the appraisal first thing tomorrow morning."
J.&A. Beare.
Founded in 1892, it was Britain's foremost dealer and appraisal institution for string instruments.
For more than 130 years, it had handled the authentication and trade of the world's finest instruments, including Stradivariuses, Guarneri del Gesus, and Amatis.
A place known as the beating heart of London's instrument market.
Once their seal appeared on an appraisal certificate, it was said to function as a passport recognized anywhere in the world.
There were not many places on earth that could dispute their findings.
"Fortunately, since this is a project with Nutflix, they agreed to move the schedule up."
"Thank you."
"And one more thing."
Oliver looked at Si-woo.
"For provenance reinforcement, we'll also need to check Karl Flesch's memoirs and related archives. That's where Hassid received private lessons, so there's a good chance records from that period still exist. I'll make sure to find everything on that end."
From here, there was nothing more for Si-woo to do.
The appraisal was done.
All that remained was for the specialized institution to make the official verification.
The formal appraisal report from J.&A. Beare.
Archival document reinforcement.
And finally, contacting the foundation to find someone who would buy Le Chant du Silence and loan it out.
Si-woo looked out the window.
The afternoon sunlight of London had settled over the stone buildings.
* * *
J.&A. Beare's appraisal period took a minimum of one month.
They would have to wait at least that long.
Si-woo returned to Korea.
Flight attendants who recognized him approached carefully to greet him on the plane.
Several passengers also asked for photos.
That was the power of the Nutflix documentary.
Si-woo smiled and obliged.
He was used to it by now.
He arrived home.
The moment he opened the front door.
Thud-thud-thud—
A black blur charged down the hallway.
It was Kkamangi.
"Mew!"
A short, sharp cry.
The little thing had started complaining before it even got close, as if asking why he'd taken so long to come back.
Si-woo laughed and gathered Kkamangi into his arms.
He stroked its head lightly.
Grrr...
It kept acting offended that he'd been gone so long, yet a purr immediately rumbled up from its throat.
Such an honest creature.
When he sat quietly and kept petting it, Kkamangi's tail swayed lazily, looking completely at ease.
"Mother, I'm home."
"Si-woo, you're back."
His mother came out into the living room.
"Did everything go well? No problems?"
"Of course. Who's your son? Why would anything happen?"
Si-woo grinned with Kkamangi still in his arms.
His mother smiled back, then seemed to remember something and took out her smartphone to search for something.
"Hold on a second, Si-woo. Before you go wash up, look at this."
She held out the screen.
It was Nutube.
A familiar place appeared in the thumbnail.
Nakwon Arcade.
Si-woo's pupils flickered slightly.
The title caught his eye.
Nothing especially outrageous.
In fact, it was almost too plain for the Nutube market.
And yet.
- 523,230 views.
Si-woo stared blankly at the screen before he realized it.
Half a million.
He had known someone was filming with a phone at the time.
He had never imagined they'd upload it to Nutube.
And the view count was absurd. What even was that number?
So many people had watched it.
Si-woo set Kkamangi down and took his mother's phone.
He tapped the video.
On the screen, there he was, lifting the violin.
The sound quality was only what you'd expect from a smartphone recording, but the violin's beauty still came through clearly enough even through the tiny speaker.
Si-woo stopped the video and scrolled down to the comments.
They were pouring in.
- Wow, even I can tell this is on a completely different level the moment I hear it, and I don't know a thing about music. Who is this?
- Is it just me replaying this on endless loop?
- There are really geniuses like this? Who is he? At this level, he sounds like someone I've heard of somewhere before.
- What's the title of this piece? Anyone know?
- Wow, I'm getting chills. I listened once and just spaced out.
- I showed this to a friend who majored in violin, and he couldn't say anything for a long time. When I told him this incredible performance happened at Nakwon Arcade, he looked completely floored.
Si-woo couldn't tear his eyes away from the phone.
The comments kept going without end.
By now, it had already spread across every community and classical-music gallery.
"Si-woo."
His mother spoke softly.
"Mom had no idea. I didn't know my son could play the violin this well."
There was no denying it now.
The violin performance had already been captured during the Nutflix shoot.
What could he do?
At times like this, he had to brazen it out.
"I didn't know I had this talent either."